A little souvenir: the Marquess and the Mycenaean columns

This is a study of change over time, both in attitudes to objects, and in the manner of their collection. The example of a pair of columns from a Mycenaean tholos tomb, the so-called 'Treasury of Atreus' at Mycenae, serves as a point of departure for discussion of the value of material culture in the context of archaeology's emergence as a discipline.